


Family

by Mendeia



Series: Proximity to Balance [6]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 10:51:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendeia/pseuds/Mendeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, it was no real surprise that Cathy half-adopted all five of the ex-Gundam pilots, even if it did take her a while to get there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family

**Author's Note:**

> A slightly more serious one for you this time. It's something that I don't think has been looked at before with the cannon, so it was definitely worth the doing. And I do love it when Trowa shakes off his more common quiet and speaks from the heart.
> 
> Enjoy!

In the end, it was no real surprise that Cathy half-adopted all five of the ex-Gundam pilots, even if it did take her a while to get there.

Being Trowa's sister naturally led to her regular interactions with the other four, not only when Trowa came to visit her, but when she unexpectedly popped in to "surprise" him. One of the first times she did so, however, the pilots demanded to know exactly how she had found them, given that they were operating in the L2 slums and trying _very_ hard not to be noticed before a mission.

"Simple," she'd told them. "I asked Sally."

At which point Wufei wasted no time calling up said Preventers agent and lecturing her quite forcefully about the secrecy of their location, the security risks posed by giving out their information to civilians, the possibility for capture and betrayal, etc. She simply laughed at him and cut the call. Repeated attempts to vent at her were ignored.

So Trowa began keeping Cathy informed as to when they would _not_ be on a mission or in hiding somewhere, enabling her to visit at more opportune times. Cathy remembered Heero from when Trowa had nursed him back to health, and had no qualms about reminding the stoic Japanese soldier to eat regularly, relax sometimes, and laugh. She was utterly nonplussed by Wufei's disdain of her sisterly advances, and soon enough a stern glare from her was enough to cut him off mid-rant. Duo absolutely, hands-down, _adored_ Cathy, doubly so when she would tell funny stories about the circus family, and they got along like a house on fire with twice the chaos, plus all the knives.

It was Quatre Cathy struggled with the most, simply because she blamed him more than anyone else for Trowa's near-death (which was fair in Quatre's mind) and Trowa's subsequent return to the battlefield (somewhat less fair but the blond couldn't really argue with her on it). Several months of visits did not seem to endear him to her at all. Quatre accepted her coldness with a sort of resigned sadness and politely did not ask her for more than she was willing to give.

Cathy's blame of Quatre did not sit at all well with Trowa, however.

"Can we talk?" he asked her one night when she had been invited over ostensibly for a visit but in reality because, in his mind, things had gone too far. The last time the five had seen her, she had "forgotten" Quatre's allergy to almonds and baked an almond cake for dessert. If not for Heero's speed and sharp sense of smell, Quatre might have been out of commission for the next day's work.

It could have been an accident, and Trowa knew for a fact that even in a rage Cathy would never intentionally hurt anyone, nor was Quatre's allergy so severe he had been in true danger. But it was enough.

"What's on your mind?" Cathy noticed at once that she and Trowa were alone, and given that this was a miniscule two-bedroom apartment, that was no small feat. The others had made themselves scarce, going out to resupply before the mission. At least, that's what they had used as an excuse.

"You shouldn't be mad at Quatre," Trowa told her, folding his arms.

"I'm not." Her response was so quick it was almost reflexive.

"Yes you are. You blame him for me getting hurt and then going back to the fighting. And you shouldn't. Neither were his fault."

"You told me yourself he tried to kill you," she returned angrily. "How is that not his fault?"

"You know I can't tell you everything about what happened," Trowa said evenly, "but I'll say this much. What made Quatre shoot me down also made _me_ almost destroy a whole colony. While you were on it. Quatre's actually the one who prevented me from massacring you and thousands of other people. And that wasn't my fault, either. It's just…something that happened to us."

"Trowa…" Cathy breathed.

"Look," he sat beside her, meeting her pale eyes calmly, "we all did things we're not proud of during the war. We were all lost at one point, and we all made horrible mistakes. We have to live with those every single day. Quatre is no worse than the rest of us. You've forgiven everyone but him. And I get it," he reached out to cup her chin as she started to look away from his gaze, "I really do. You worry about me."

"Always," she said. "You're my brother, Trowa. In every way that counts."

"Then so is Quatre."

That surprised her. "I…don't really know how to respond to that. Why do you—?"

"Quatre has saved my life several times. And more importantly, he and the others save me every day from everything that happened before we had each other. Quatre would kill for me and he would die for me, and I would do the same for him. We all would. You can't take four of us and leave out one. You'll lose all of us. I don't know what we are, but we're more than family."

"Trowa, I don't…" she tried again.

"Not long before you and I met, I didn't even have a name. Then you gave me the first home I'd ever had. The war gave me a purpose. But it's what happened at the end of the war, when the five of us came together to fight for peace, that I finally found _myself_. Because I could see my reflection in them."

Trowa stood up again and looked out the window. Cathy waited quietly – she knew that when his customary silence gave way he would speak until his thoughts had run their course. Getting Trowa to say more than a few words at a time was always a struggle, so when he did voluntarily, she cherished them.

Even when, as now, they were hard to hear.

"Quatre has a bunch of sisters, you know. Sisters who care about him and sisters who don't and sisters he's never even met. But he doesn't have any that understand. I know you don't really understand either, but I'm lucky enough that you are willing to try anyway. It means a lot, Cathy. To have survived the war and have you to come back to, it means everything I was fighting for and everything I did was worth it."

He turned back to her, his face set and his chin firm. "But you can't give me that if I can't share it with Quatre as well as the others. It isn't fair. Quatre bled and cried for this war, too. He's half the reason we won. I owe him my life and I owe him my soul."

"Trowa, what are you saying?" Cathy stood, her stomach cold.

"I love you, Cathy," he said, but there was no warmth in his voice. "You're the only sister I'll ever have. But if you can't be a sister to Quatre too, you can't be here anymore. I will never turn my back on you, but I won't turn my back on him, either. If you want me and Heero and Wufei and Duo, you have to take Quatre too. All of us or none of us. It's up to you."

Catherine Bloom had never in her life been a run-away-from-your-problems kind of person, but that courage failed her for once and she fled Trowa's burning gaze without another word. She practically ran all the way back to the circus, not stopping until she reached her tent, where she realized for the first time that her face was wet with tears.

In the morning, she woke to the delivery of a dozen white roses and a small card.

" _Please forgive Trowa. He needs you to be his sister. I don't care about anything else and I don't blame you for anything. Quatre._ "

The flowers died after a few days, but Cathy kept the card affixed to her mirror, glancing at it at least once every day. She could not have reached out to her brother even if she had wanted to (and she didn't yet), as she knew they were just starting a long, difficult mission. It gave her some much-needed time to think.

But when, three months later, she received word that Trowa could meet her for dinner – but only Trowa – she was ready. She joined him at a restaurant she had a feeling he would not have bothered to afford on his Preventers salary, and she had a pretty good idea who might be behind Trowa's obvious effort to reconnect with her. But they both avoided the topic and tried to catch up as though things were normal.

At the end of the meal, Cathy reached into her purse to pull out a small envelope. She handed it over as she kissed him on the cheek and said goodbye. "Call me when you get back to L3," she said as she walked away.

Inside the envelope was a letter that read simply:

" _Thank you for being a friend to my brother, Quatre. I hear you have many lovely sisters to whom you are related by blood but Trowa has taught me that blood is not the only thing that matters. Nobody has so many sisters they cannot find room for one more. I will see you on L3 with the others._ "

And so she did.


End file.
